Browsing by Subject "empathy"

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    Empathy in autism spectrum disorder: Predictions from child/adolescent temperament, parenting styles, and parenting stress
    (2019) Ross, Toni Carmen Faith; Malcolm-Smith, Susan; Hamilton, Katie
    Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit definitional impairments in social relatedness; a phenomenon that can be explained, in part, by their deficits in empathy. Despite the extent of these deficits, relatively little is known about which factors promote or impede empathic functioning within this group. To date, studies of neurotypical children and adolescents suggest the explanatory power of temperament, parenting style, and parenting stress; associations which have yet to be adequately explored with ASD. Thus, the overarching aim of this investigation was to test whether the aforementioned intra- and interindividual features would predict empathy amongst children and adolescents with ASD. To account for some of the heterogeneity in ASD, two groups of parent-child dyads were recruited: one comprising male children and adolescents with intact receptive and expressive language (n = 40, M = 7.68 years); the other, males with little to no language use in either domain (n = 40, M = 9.09 years). A third group of parent-child pairs comprising male neurotypical children and adolescents with age-appropriate language functioning was included as a comparison sample (n = 40, M = 9.53 years). Parents completed wellestablished questionnaires pertaining to child/adolescent temperament and empathy, as well as parenting style and parenting stress, primarily via telephonic interviews. Results showed that temperamental regulation and negative affectivity were linked to empathy within the neurotypical group in positive and inverse directions, respectively. Only regulatory processes were positively associated with empathy within the non-verbal ASD group, whilst only negative affectivity was inversely associated to empathy within the verbal ASD group. Further, warm, responsive, autonomy-promoting parenting was positively associated with empathy within the neurotypical group, whilst punitive and lax parenting were inversely associated with empathy. Positive forms of parenting were also found to predict empathy within both ASD groups – though somewhat less so within the verbal ASD group. Perhaps a consequence of the severity of their empathic deficits, lax and permissive parenting techniques were not tied to empathy within the ASD groups. Finally, parenting stress was inversely linked to empathy within the non-verbal ASD and neurotypical groups only. Results highlight that findings obtained within neurotypical samples cannot always be extrapolated to ASD. Results further underscore the need for ASD interventions to adopt a family systems perspective, teaching parents how to perceive and respond to their children in adaptive ways.
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    Medicine and the Arts Week 5 - An insider view
    (2015-01-21) Reid, Steve
    In this video, Professor Steve Reid reflects on the various issues covered in the previous set of videos, namely the insider view of mental illness and how poetry and music can serve to improve the public's understanding of mental illness. This is the sixth video in Week 5 of the Medicine and the Arts Massive Open Online Course.
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    Medicine and the Arts Week 5 - In dialogue about mental illness
    (2015-01-21) Reid, Steve; Baumann, Sean; Dowling, Finuala
    In this video, Professor Steve Reid engages in discussion with Finuala Downling and Sean Baumann about how poetry and music can help us understand and talk about mental illness. They discuss the insider-outsider view of mental illness, experience of the world through the eyes of psychosis, and the role of imagination and empathy when listening to first-hand accounts of mental illness. This is the fourth video in Week 5 of the Medicine and the Arts Massive Open Online Course.
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    What is a Mind Week 2 - Empathising with other minds
    (2015-08-15) Solms, Mark
    In this video, Professor Mark Solms explains how absolute certaintly is not a requirement in everyday life and even in some aspects of science; rather, a systematic common sense approach is often used to test whether something has subjectivity or not. He uses the example of pain to illustrate this idea. This is video 3 in Week 2 of the What is a Mind MOOC.